Each time an Apple-related news breaks I’m asking myself why am I not an Apple fan? Despite hundreds of Mac/iBooks demoed in Hollywood movies and all musicians / designers around me going crazy for iMacs. The most recent news were of course iPad and a tiny local one – head of Apple Russia joining (sorry Russian only) Oracle Russia some two months ago. The simple answer is Apple not being Java’s friend. But the real cause lies much deeper on a psychological level. I first got acquainted with Apple in the early nineties being an exchange student in South Carolina. I was really impressed by iMac’s multimedia capabilities unprecedented in those days. Unfortunately in half an hour of playing with it I felt a little discomfort which later resolved into frustration. The single-button mouse was the cause. My first thought was that Apple considered its users to be on a primitive level of evolution which I hoped was not the case with me. The explanation of such an attitude was given by a computer science teacher. His point was that Apple and its MacOS was much better in terms of computer-assisted education compared to Windows. MacOS in most cases provided a single straight way of completing a task while one could accomplish the same task in hundreds of ways on Windows. As years went by I saw lots of cases when people (especially seniors) studying computer science were continuously stumbling upon the vast variety of approaches to solve a single task on Windows, iMac would’ve been a much better choice for them. When I read Jef Raskin’s book (ok a quarter of a book) I finally understood the science that they were putting in iMacs: Apple was trying to capture users’ locus of attention, with a single-button mouse considered to be a perfect means for that. My locus managed to escape. The second attempt to make me an Apple fan was of course the iPhone. Its touchscreen amazed me, for the first 15 minutes before I tried to send my vcard to it via bluetooth from my Nokia. iPhone owners excitement declined gradually since they purchased it as more and more features common to ordinary (read: non-touchscreen) phones appeared to be unavailable for them. The only really good purpose that iPhone served at the time of its appearance was attracting young women’s locuses of attention. So, my overall impression about Apple is that it’s a type of a company that puts a lot of intellectual property into its products. They are limiting all kind of external interfaces (a single-button mouse, restricted bluetooth, or OS targeting specific hardware etc.) as if their IP could float away in this way. Finally, the answer to my original question is: I could become Apple fan once I’m able to install MacOS on a no-name barebone system and preferably be able to patch a mouse driver in case I accidentally decide to solder in a couple of extra buttons. OR, once I can run JavaFX in on iPhone. Whichever comes first. Until then Apple should feel free to follow its concealment policy which reminds me of SAP with its legacy aged closed source modules. I guess SAP could really buy Apple so they would experience some real good concealment ecstasy. JavaTechnology Industry